I am roasting some sweet potatoes right now, and the house smells heavenly because of it.

Mom taught Me to bake them, yummy with some margarine and I think some allspice, wrapped in aluminum foil, with the potatoes stuck deeply with a fork, at 350F, for at least 30mins, more time can be added until tender, since the time varies with the size of the potato, then split them like any normal baked potato, then add the margarine, allspice and serve.

I am roasting some sweet potatoes right now, and the house smells heavenly because of it.

Mom taught Me to bake them, yummy with some margarine and I think some allspice, wrapped in aluminum foil, with the potatoes stuck deeply with a fork, at 350F, for at least 30mins, more time can be added until tender, since the time varies with the size of the potato, then split them like any normal baked potato, then add the margarine, allspice and serve.

The foil keeps the potato from dripping while baking in the oven.

Yams would be the same of course.

Vic, with all due respect to your sainted mother, I think you need to recheck her recipe. A sweet potato doesn't even come close to getting soft in a half hour.

To roast medium sized sweet potatoes I recommend the following. Wash sweet potatoes. Stick a few holes in the skins with a fork so that the sweet potatoes do not explode in your oven. You do not have to pierce them deeply. A quarter of an inch is fine. The idea is just to keep pressure from building up under the skin. Place pierced sweet potatoes on a rimmed baking sheet. (If you want to save time on pan clean-up you could line the baking sheet with foil, but this step is entirely optional. Sweet potato juices are easily removed from a baking pan if you let it soak for an hour or so. They are mostly sugar so they dissolve relatively easily in water.) Anyway, do not wrap foil around your sweet potatoes - you want the sugars in the sweet potatoes to roast and caramelize. You do not want the sweet potato to steam. Steaming will happen if it is wrapped in foil. Steamed sweet potatoes taste wishy-washy. Nobody wants that!

Bake at 375 degrees for an hour and a half (Yes, a full 90 minutes... longer if your sweet potatoes are very, very large.)

You want the sweet potatoes to be tender through and you want to see just a tiny trickle of juices starting to run out of a couple of the holes you put in the skin. If you have lots of sugars running out of every hole you put in your sweet potatoes, you have gone too far. A little bit of runny sugars escaping - good. Lots and lots of runny sugars escaping - bad. The idea is to keep the liquefied/caramelized sugars mostly inside of the sweet potatoes so that you taste the sugars. If you run all the sugars out of Dodge, your sweet potatoes will taste dry and starchy.

Remove sweet potatoes from oven. Let rest 5 minutes. Slice open, sprinkle with salt if desired (I usually don't), and enjoy. If you like rich tasting sweet potatoes, butter them. If you want to experience a "sweet potato gone wild", pour a little real maple syrup over them when you split them.. (Not "pancake syrup" which is basically corn syrup doctored up with artificial flavors and colors... real maple syrup, but only if you happen to keep it in your pantry.)

What???!!! What's that you say? Life is too short to spend 90 minutes roasting sweet potatoes and you'd rather send them in a savory direction anyway??? No problem. Just try this:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel the sweet potatoes. Cut into 2 inch chunks. Toss them with olive oil. Salt and pepper them to taste. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil to save on clean-up (optional step). Spread the sweet potato chunks out in single layer. Roast for 20 minutes. Rotate the pan from back to front. Roast for another 20 minutes. Test with a fork. If they are tender at that point, they are done. If not, give them another 5 minutes or so.

If you want to experience a "savory sweet potato gone wild", toss a sliced onion with some olive oil, salt, pepper and about a tablespoon of fresh thyme leaves, minced. Throw the onion mixture onto the baking pan when you rotate the sweet potatoes (after their first 20 minutes of baking). Toss onions with the sweet potatoes before serving.

Ang is my name and food is my game. And raccoons. And speech pathology. And Halloween.

Vic, I vehemently disagree. I would NEVER wrap foil around a sweet potato or a regular potato because that ruins the flavor and texture. It is an old-wives-tale (probably started and perpetuated by The Reynold's Company!!!) that you need to wrap potatoes of any sort in foil. If you want a really good baked Russet potato all you have to do is wash it, pierce it with a fork a couple of times, rub it with vegetable oil, salt it liberally, throw it on a baking sheet and bake it until it is tender through - not wrapped in foil!!!

Oh... I suppose if I were camping I might stick a foil wrapped potato into a campfire, but that is the only context I can imagine in which foil around a potato of ANY sort would be justified.

A yam, by the way, is a starchy root native to the African continent. I know that in North America we sometimes call sweet potatoes "yams", but what we eat here are really sweet potatoes.

I did the very small sweet potato for my mother today at 350 for an hour and it probably could have had a little extra heat to soften it more, but it was fine, and she liked it. :~)

We always use Reynolds wrap, too. ;~)

LOL!!!! Well Gordon, my friend, please consider me on a mission to purge the use of aluminum foil from the baking of tubers everywhere. Tonight I'm going to put on my Sunday best clothes and start ringing doorbells in my neighborhood. I'll hand people pamphlets, push my way inside of their houses and begin the "conversation" with. "Pardon me, but do you have a few minutes to talk about potatoes this evening?" When it comes to food, I have plenty of religious zeal.

Anyway, a very small and skinny sweet potato might roast in an hour. I tend to avoid buying the skinny ones, unless I am going to cube and roast them using the savory approach that I posted.

Really big sweet potatoes can be starchy and skinny little sweet potatoes can be difficult to roast in the skins without over-doing them. Personally, I find that medium sized sweet potatoes work best in all applications.

Vic, I vehemently disagree. I would NEVER wrap foil around a sweet potato or a regular potato because that ruins the flavor and texture. It is an old-wives-tale (probably started and perpetuated by The Reynold's Company!!!) that you need to wrap potatoes of any sort in foil. If you want a really good baked Russet potato all you have to do is wash it, pierce it with a fork a couple of times, rub it with vegetable oil, salt it liberally, throw it on a baking sheet and bake it until it is tender through - not wrapped in foil!!!

Oh... I suppose if I were camping I might stick a foil wrapped potato into a campfire, but that is the only context I can imagine in which foil around a potato of ANY sort would be justified.

A yam, by the way, is a starchy root native to the African continent. I know that in North America we sometimes call sweet potatoes "yams", but what we eat here are really sweet potatoes.

The foil was to catch any and all drips(which did happen), so that the oven would not need to be cleaned as often or ever, but then you have easy off, Me I have a self cleaning oven, at least once I press a button or something.

The foil was not for a russet, it was for the yams or even for sweet potatoes.

I use the Reynolds wrap non-stick a lot, too. Ok, yes, I have stock in the company. ;~) Seriously though, neither my mom or I have ever owned a microwave, and we're old-school. ;~) The mind is a weird and mysterious place

The foil was to catch any and all drips(which did happen), so that the oven would not need to be cleaned as often or ever, but then you have easy off, Me I have a self cleaning oven, at least once I press a button or something.
Oh and I do have the benefit of a cooking merit badge, among others, and at least I do know how to cook, unlike My Dad's generation, He even asked Me how to wash dishes.

I use Wax paper so I dont have to clean the oven.
Wax paper is more functional than plastic wrap which will melt at lower temperatures, or aluminium foil which is not safe for use in most microwave ovens.

Oh and I do have the benefit of a cooking merit badge, among others, and at least I do know how to cook, unlike My Dad's generation, He even asked Me how to wash dishes.

I use Wax paper so I dont have to clean the owen.
Wax paper is more functional than plastic wrap which will melt at lower temperatures, or aluminium foil which is not safe for use in most microwave ovens.

What you call wax paper may be what we call parchment paper over here. Wax paper, in our country, is thin paper coated with wax. I use it in between layers of baked cookies, for storage. If you put American waxed paper in the oven it will melt and even ignite.